Cheta fire, December 2024 Cheta, Ela (Konta) SP Woreda
The fire started on 15 December 2024 in Cheta, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,021 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 182th largest in SNNPR since 2016 (of 186 with a page). Number 85 in Ethiopia in 2024, of 87.
- Burnt area
- 2,021ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 15 Dec 2024 – 19 Dec 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 15 Dec
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 68
- in a single hotspot: 47 MW
- Energy released
- 593MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,243 ha in 2016, 183 ha in 2017, 1 ha in 2018, 1,870 ha in 2019, 1,520 ha in 2020, 1,057 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,033 ha that had burned before.
- 1,693 ha Cheta fire, January 2019 14,263 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,359 ha Cheta fire, December 2020 2,296 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 966 ha Ela (Konta) SP Woreda fire, December 2016 17,621 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 292 ha Ela (Konta) SP Woreda fire, January 2021 2,421 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 23 ha Cheta fire, January 2021 2,262 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 14 ha Ela (Konta) SP Woreda fire, February 2016 2,407 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Cheta where it started1,952 ha reached on 15 Dec2.9 %
-
82 ha reached on 19 Dec0.0 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 18 December 2024 the air beside the fire reached 77 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 55: 3.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 68Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 14,263 haChetaJanuary 2019 · 17 days · 4 km away
- 17,621 haEla (Konta) SP Woreda22 December 2016 · 28 days · 6 km away
- 19,581 haDecha30 December 2016 · 16 days · 22 km away
- 18,505 haEla (Konta) SP Woreda10 January 2019 · 9 days · 24 km away
- 20,202 haEla (Konta) SP Woreda29 December 2016 · 20 days · 27 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cheta fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 December 2024 and 19 December 2024: 5 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,021 hectares (20.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cheta (1,952 ha, 2.9 %); Ela (Konta) SP Woreda (82 ha, 0.0 %).
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Ethiopia (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
Where to verify it
A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.
Satellite cross-check
Does something look wrong on this page?
This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.
Report an error
Where this data comes from
The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM3 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.